Jazz Flashcards
What is the political and cultural history of New Orleans?
Founded by the French with very few blacks living here; melting pot of European, Spanish, French, and Ango influences. Language and customs remain primarily French and there is a strong creole culture
What is the creole culture?
Located in New Orleans; it is a Spanish and French blending. Creole meant “European descent” born in the new world but now has racial connotation.
Who are the Creoles of color?
Located in New Orleans; they are a mix race level of society. They often spoke with a French way, had their own opera houses, and even owned slaves.
What are the black codes?
Limits the rights of Creoles of color, “one drop rule” = if you have one drop of black blood then you are black
European contributions to jazz
- Instruments = string instruments, brass instruments, piano, clarinet, saxophones
- Harmony
- Extended musical forms = multi part song forms
- Notation = writing it down
New Orleans
The most cosmopolitan city in the world
African contributions to jazz
- Expressive qualities = moans, growls, voices that are imitated by instruments
- Cyclical forms = extended things by cycling parts
- Improvisation and call & response
- Polyrhythms and syncopation
New Orleans style
- Collective improvisation = weaving lines in and out at the same time. Everyone improvises their own roles.
- Instrumental roles = tuba played two-beat chords, piano and banjo played off-beat chords that pulled down melody, and drums played marching style
Who is Buddy Bolden?
New Orleans style trumpet player who never made a recording so no one realized he existed. Thought to be the standard early jazz ensemble because he married string band and brass band
Original Dixieland Jazz Band (ODJB)
New Orleans style; Audiences went crazy for this because they never heard anything like it.
What is the great migration?
Blacks out of the south. They are going for jobs and moving up to Detroit because they are still secondary slaves.
Who is Louis Armstrong?
Chicago style and King Oliver’s prodigy; he was a pioneering jazz trumpeter who played society gigs and dance gigs that really revolutionized jazz.
What are the influential hot 5 and hot 7 recordings?
Louis Armstrong wrote these and revolutionized jazz
Jazz became a “soloist’s art” due to whom?
Louis Armstrong; there was interaction between soloist and band versus band as a whole.
Louis Armstrong as an entertainer
This is his secondary career by the 40s
Louis Armstrong as a cultural ambassador
He presented a nonthreatening demeanor and was the most famous American in the world. He spread democracy through music
Scat singing
Singing without words, using the voice as an instrument
Who is Billie Holiday?
A jazz singer, one of “Louis’s children. She sounds just like him and lived a jazz life personified. All of the hardship came through in her singing.
Who is Ella Fitzgerald?
Great jazz singer who had a similar upbringing as Billie Holiday but was not self-destructive. She was a good improviser and s huge scar singer and preferred small groups.
What is swing music?
The pop music of the 1930s and 1940s?
Big bands are an element of what form of music?
Swing; big bands have sections of reeves and rhythm
Who is Duke Ellington?
Great jazz composer who won a gig at the Cotton Club
What is the Cotton Club?
Featured great black entertainers but the audience was white
The Cotton Club had an approach to what kind of sound?
Ensemble sound; Duke Ellington valued individual sound of his composers and he wanted his musicians to sound totally different so that everyone had a unique sound
Who is Benny Goodman?
A clarinet player known as the “king of swing”. He bought an entire book of musical arrangements by a man named Fletcher Henderson. Fletcher sold all his music to Benny and that became very popular
Benny Goodman was the first to…
Break the color barrier and integrate white jazz musicians with black musicians
Who is John Hammond?
A record scout promoter who discovered Billie Holiday and convinced Benny Goodman to hire black musicians in his band
Who is Teddy Wilson?
A black pianist hired by Benny Goodman which was a big deal to America at the time.
Who is Lionel Hampton?
Vibraphone player hired by Benny Goodman
What is bebop?
A new style of jazz that is seen as an evolution and a revolution
What influenced bebop?
- WWII because the draft is happening
* recording ban that makes records be produced at a smaller rate
Bebop was a reaction to what?
Swing; bebop musicians were rebelling against increasingly cliched and tired big bands. They were looking for creative freedom
What are the musical characteristics of bebop?
- Small groups - big band is moved back to smaller groups so that everyone can improvise and interact
- fast tempo and rhythmically complex - you can’t dance to bebop tunes because they play fast
- emphasis on improvisation - be spontaneous!
What is Minton’s playhouse?
In Harlem, musicians would finish their gig and go to Minton’s at 2AM. They tried new versions of tunes and upped the velocity and changed things
Who is Charlie Parker?
He played alto sax; innovator of sound and was very fast. He upped virtuosity and was beyond any other sax players
Who is Dizzy Gillespie?
Trumpet player; he was the match of Charlie Parker. He was the “face of bebop”
Who is Miles Davis?
Next great innovator who played trumpet
Modal jazz
Associated with Miles Davis
Who is John Coltrane?
Played tenor saxophone for “So What” with Miles Davis
What is Avante Garde?
Also known as free jazz; this is about questioning things
What did Avante Garde question?
Dominance of present harmony (melody always had same chords), steady beat (what about no beat), and repeating song forms
Who is Ornette Coleman?
Saxophonist who questioned song forms and wanted to start solo and go wherever he wanted with it. No other artist is like this so it takes him a long time to find like-minded musicians who start a band with him.
What is jazz fusion?
Jazz and rock combined. Younger musicians grew up listening to both the Beatles and jazz so they combined the two.
Jazz fusion had what kind of instruments?
Electric (bass, guitar, keyboard, even horns)
What is Bitches brew?
A type of music created by Miles Davis; he had a funky repetitive bass and a bigger drum set. Electric keyboards were used to create weird unique sounds.
What is the controversy over jazz fusion?
Seen by critics as commercial, as pop-based music undermining the jazz tradition
What is neo-classicism?
A return back to the classical music
What was neo-classicism a reaction to?
Fusion had become too commercial and Avante Garde had too many people on stage and not in the audience so the people demanded a change
What is the repertory movement?
Bands were dedicated to playing jazz composers and classical music from the 19th century. This is what neo-classicism is all about.
Who is Wynton Marsalis?
One of the most well known jazz players who played with the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra
Who is Brad Mehldau?
A pianist who drew on Nirvana, the Beatles, radio head, etc. He covered “Knives Out” by radio head which has 8 different layers of music to it, drawing off of previous artists.
